Cody has never been lucky in love. In fact, he isn’t feeling very lucky at all. Losing his job and all his money means he has to sell his home. He feels overwhelmed at having to start from scratch again.

Cody decides to get away from it all, and retreats to a secluded forest for some peace and quiet. But two days into his journey, he’s hit over the head as he’s emerging from his tent. When he wakes up, he discovers he’s tied to a chair in a dark room. He struggles against his bonds, and when he hears someone approaching, he begins to panic.

Who kidnapped him? What do they want from a man who has nothing left?

EXCERPT:Note: may contain sexually explicit scenes of a homoerotic nature.

After a simple breakfast of eggs and berries, which Baz fed to him, Cody was untied.

“Strip,” said Baz.

Cody opened his mouth to ask why he should take his clothing off, but before he could utter a solitary syllable, Baz spoke again.

“Strip.”

Cody removed his shirt and then his boots and socks, thereby releasing an unpleasant odour of two-day-old sweat and confinement which repulsed even him. He took his shorts off and stood, facing Baz wearing only his damp underpants.

Baz nodded at them.

“Really?” asked Cody. “These as well?”

Baz’s cold, dark eyes bored into him.

Cody clicked his teeth and groaned, but obeyed his captor, stepping out of his underpants and kicking them behind him.

Despite the discomfort Cody felt at being naked in front of this stranger, this abductor, Baz seemed completely disinterested in Cody’s naked state. There was no once over, no sign of interest at all. He calmly re-tied Cody’s wrists and used the length of rope remaining to lead Cody from the room into the forest.

“Where are you taking me?” Cody asked, his heart pounding a tattoo as several possibilities occurred to him.

Baz remained silent, ploughing on through the forest, sweeping small saplings aside with his muscular forearm, unconcerned that most of them swung back, whipping Cody in the face and torso. The further they went, the more Cody began to believe he was taking his final breaths. He felt increasingly weak at the knees as though somehow his muscles knew the fate awaiting him.

“Where are we going?” he asked again, noting a crack in his voice that annoyed him. If he was going to die, he didn’t want to give his captor the pleasure of hearing his fear.

He could hear himself breathing, the heavy sniffing sound of oxygen being sharply inhaled and exhaled through his nostrils. He stumbled and thought he heard himself whimper. He’d never whimpered in his entire life. He snarled at the thought he might have shown such an unmistakable sign of weakness.

And how was he to die? The man had no visible weapons, apart from his sheer bulk. Cody would put up a good fight. He would make sure he didn’t depart from this world easily. But he was tired and weak from lack of sustenance. It wouldn’t take long for a bear of a man like Baz to dispatch him. And there were rocks aplenty, scattered amongst the leaf litter. All Baz would need to do was pick one up and bring it crashing down on Cody’s skull. One blow from a man like Baz would be all it would take.

He heard the sound of rushing water. A river. So that was it. Baz was going to drown him and let the current remove the body. Ingenious. If his body was ever found, it would look like he had simply drowned.

The forest thinned out and finally gave way to a small grassy clearing. In front of them was a river, lined with rocks worn smooth by eons of water flowing over them. To his right there was a large cliff which must have risen up from the otherwise flat ground during some eons-old geological catastrophe. The grassy surface swept back, away from the sheer drop of the cliff edge, in a gentle slope which curved around through the forest to the edge of the rocky river bank.

I wonder what the view up there is like? Cody wondered.

Baz led Cody across the rocks to the edge of the water, where he stopped and removed his boots, socks, and shorts. When he stood up he presented a classic vision of manhood -- thick, muscular limbs, broad chest, thickly-haired, and a large, uncut cock that curved over full, heavy balls. Had he not been gripped by terror, Cody might have been sporting an erection.

Baz tied the end of the rope he had been carrying around his waist and walked into the water without flinching at the chill, which produced a sharp intake of air from Cody as it hit his naked flesh. Once they were in the middle of the river, in chest-deep water, Baz splashed some water over his face and gave it a good wash. He then began to wash under his arms and his chest.